Meet Essie Bent, MEd, LPC-R
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
LGBTQIA+ & Relationship Therapist in Virginia
– Licensed Resident in Counseling – Virginia
– Licensed Graduate Professional Counselor – Maryland
Offering sessions In-Office and Virtually to clients in Virginia
You deserve relationships where you can be fully yourself.
You may feel like you’re constantly editing yourself — in your relationships, in your family, or even in your own mind. Maybe you’re:
- Struggling with shame about who you are or what you’ve experienced
- Feeling disconnected in your romantic relationship or family
- Navigating identity questions about sexuality, culture, or belonging
- Carrying the emotional weight of being misunderstood, marginalized, or unseen
- Trying to break patterns that keep showing up in your relationships
You want deeper connection — but something keeps getting in the way.
And when shame, past experiences, or cultural expectations are involved, it can feel incredibly lonely to carry those struggles by yourself.
You deserve a space where all of you is welcome.
A Space That Honors Your Identity
My approach is warm, collaborative, and deeply affirming. Therapy with me is a place where you can say the things you’ve never been able to say out loud — without fear of judgment.
When you sit down in therapy with me, you don’t have to filter yourself or hide the parts of your story that feel complicated, confusing, or painful. My goal is to create a space where you can show up as you are and feel genuinely understood.
I’m an active, engaged therapist. I’ll ask thoughtful questions, notice patterns, and help you connect the dots between your past experiences, your identity, and the ways you move through relationships today. Together, we’ll explore the places where shame may have taken hold and begin loosening its grip so you can relate to yourself with more compassion.
Over time, many clients begin to feel more confident in who they are and clearer about what they need from the people in their lives. They find themselves communicating more openly, setting healthier boundaries, and building relationships that feel more authentic and supportive. Therapy becomes a place where you’re not just coping with life, but learning how to live in a way that feels more honest and aligned with who you truly are.
You won’t get a therapist who simply sits back and lets you do all the work. I’m present in the room with you, engaged in understanding what you’re going through and helping you make sense of it.
You also won’t get quick fixes or surface-level advice. The struggles people bring to therapy are rarely simple, especially when they involve identity, relationships, and long-standing feelings of shame. Instead of rushing toward solutions, we’ll slow down enough to understand what’s really happening underneath the surface.
And you won’t have to worry about being judged or having to justify who you are. Too many people spend their lives feeling like they need to explain themselves just to be accepted. Therapy with me is meant to be different. It’s a place where your experiences are respected and your identity is welcomed, not questioned.
Many of the people who come to see me have spent a long time feeling like something about them doesn’t quite fit. They may feel misunderstood in their relationships, weighed down by shame, or unsure how to fully be themselves in the world around them.
If that resonates with you, therapy can be a place to finally slow down and start making sense of those experiences. Together, we can explore the messages you’ve received about who you’re supposed to be, how those messages have shaped your relationships, and what it might look like to move forward in a way that feels more authentic.
Working together isn’t about fixing who you are. It’s about helping you understand yourself more deeply, heal the parts of your story that still carry pain, and create relationships that allow you to show up fully as yourself.
If you’re looking for a therapist who will meet you with warmth, curiosity, and respect for the complexity of your identity and experiences, I would be honored to walk alongside you in that process.
Out-of-Pocket Fee: $140 per 50-minute session for individual therapy, couples/marriage therapy, family therapy
In-Network Provider via Supervisor: CareFirst BCBS [pending], Cigna PPO/Evernorth, Sentara/Optima
Certified Out-of-Network Provider via Supervisor w/ Tricare
Your Journey Starts Here
LGBTQIA+ Affirming Therapy
Relationship & Partner Issues
Shame & Identity Work
Anxiety, Depression, Trauma & PTSD
Family Conflict
Life Transitions
Working With Me
Healing doesn’t happen by pretending parts of yourself don’t exist. Real healing happens when those parts are finally understood.
In our work together, we’ll explore the deeper patterns shaping your relationships, identity, and sense of self. Many of those patterns were formed long before you had the language to understand them — through culture, family dynamics, trauma, and the messages you received about who you were allowed to be.
Using an insight-oriented and relational therapy approach, I help clients:
– Understand the roots of shame and self-criticism
– Explore how identity and culture shape relationships
– Build healthier communication and emotional connection
– Heal wounds from past experiences and trauma
– Develop a stronger, more compassionate relationship with themselves
Together, we’ll help you build relationships that feel safer, more authentic, and more connected.
My Background – And Fun Facts!
I am a Licensed Resident in Counseling (VA 0704016936), a Licensed Graduate Professional Counselor (MD #LGP17681), supervised under Kim Rippy, LPC, and Kaitlyn Steel, LMFT. I am a Certified Trauma Professional (CTP) from Evergreen, and work through trauma informed care. I earned my Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from George Mason University, and my Bachelor’s in Psychology from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.
My passion to pursue a career in therapy began through advocacy work for disenfranchised communities such as the LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC demographics. Growing up in an impoverished area, I understand the need for mental health advocacy and how the absence can negatively affect an entire community.
The acknowledgement of barriers out of our control that lead to a lack of resources such as counseling is important to challenge and change. I am dedicated to working through difficult experiences both past and present with my clients by being there with compassion and listening ears. Therapy can work for anyone who is willing to be open and vulnerable and my goal is to create a setting that will make this easy for my clients to achieve.
There are many obstacles we face and some we try to face alone. The barriers we may combat to self advocate may be cultural, social, economic, or environmental. I want to be a part of dismantling suffering in silence and change the stigma attached to mental health in all communities, especially the BIPOC community. Through my intersectional lens, I highlight the many identities my clients have in a means to advocate for each separately and collaboratively.
Every person deserves a space for healing and I would like to be a guide on your therapeutic journey that will be tailored to your specific needs. With a psychoanalytic therapeutic approach combined with Emotionally Focused Therapy, I believe we must understand our past in order to dissect our present. Getting to know where your trauma stems from will allow you to acknowledge mental and emotional obstacles that we all face daily.
I work with individuals, families, and couples who may struggle with anxiety, depression, life transitions, cultural identity, trauma, stress, and relationship issues. My intersectional and advocacy driven therapeutic lens also makes me a good fit for the queer and ethical non monogamous community. Healing is for everyone and I hope to inspire my clients to know that they are worthy of revitalizing through unlearning and relearning as a means to heal.
My Blog Posts
5 Ways to Fight for Who You Are as a Queer Person of Color
Too often, we silence our truth to keep the peace—especially when we hold identities that are misunderstood or marginalized.[…]